I have taken for some years a good
deal of pains on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in placing
the number below two millions of inhabitants of our own European blood and
color, besides at least five hundred thousand others, who form no inconsiderable
part of the strength and opulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, I believe, about
the true number. There is no occasion to exaggerate where plain truth is of so
much weight and importance. But whether I put the present numbers too high or
too low is a matter of little moment. Such is the strength with which population
shoots in that part of the world, that, state the numbers as high as we will,
whilst the dispute continues, the exaggeration ends. Whilst we are discussing
any given magnitude, they are grown to it. Whilst we spend our time in
deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we shall find we have
millions more to manage. Your children do not grow faster from infancy to
manhood than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to
nations.
I put this consideration of the present and the growing numbers in the front of
our deliberation, because, Sir, this consideration will make it evident to a
blunter discernment than yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched,
occasional system will be at all suitable to such an object.
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